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The line between automation and humans blurs more often than Silicon Valley might like to admit. Facebook hired thousands of people this year to moderate content on its social network, after algorithms repeatedly failed to do the job. Uber depends on more than 2 million drivers worldwide to provide rides every day, as well as employees at headquarters to make sure enough of those drivers are on the road. Behind much of Google’s digitization of books and maps is random people on the internet, conscripted using reCaptcha. Expensify is just another example.

The receipts on Mechanical Turk belonged to “less than 0.00004% of users—none of whom are paying customers,” Barrett said, adding that, at any rate, there is nothing important on a receipt, “that’s why receipts are so commonly thrown out—because they are literally garbage.” Also: “anybody concerned by the real-world risks of a vetted, tested transcriptionist reading their Uber receipt should probably consider the vastly more immediate and life-threatening consequences of getting into that stranger’s car in the first place.”